Bright Shark

It is 1988, and the American research vessel Fanning II is conducting underwater tests off the coast of Greece when it discovers traces of the Dakar , an Israeli submarine lost in 1967. The Dakar so concerns U.S. intelligence that a file, code-named Bright Shark, remains open after 20 years. Nor is America the only interested party. As Navy lieutenant Edna Haddix and Department of Energy troubleshooter Wendell Trent seek to solve the Dakar 's mystery, Israel and the U.S.S.R. join forces to preserve the submarine's secret--at the price of direct confrontation with the U.S. Oceanographer Ballard ( The Discovery of the Titanic ) and journalist/novelist Chiu ( Port Arthur Chicken ) produce a page-turning narrative plausible in its context and convincing in its details. The descriptions of modern undersea exploration with remote-controlled probes are no less exciting than the unfolding of the top-secret back-channel Soviet-Israeli relationship. The authors cleverly eschew sexual and romantic episodes for vignettes filling in the chinks in recent history; readers will particularly enjoy the barbed treatments of the 1988 Moscow summit and of Greece's Papandreou regime in its final stages. This breathless novel establishes the abundant potential of the near past as a setting for the techno-thriller. (Apr.)